Holmes HM1200 Cool Mist Humidifier

It is moderately quiet and produces unnoticeable mist. It does not make a puddle in front as some high volume cool misters do.

We've tried many other cool mist humidifers for the kids' room and this one is the best! Others either gummed up or were too expensive. This one is perfect.

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Bryant/Carrier Humidifier Water Panel P110-3545 - 2-Pk

Decent price, quick shipping. I had trouble determining if this would fit in my Bryant HUMBBLFP1418. One other website suggested it would. It does.

You need a new one of these every year, and this is a good, cheap way to buy them. It's a quick ship and they come undamaged.

One thing I would counsel you about is to notice there in the picture the red dot on one end of the filter. That red dot has to go up when the filter is installed. These filters have a clear red dot. Another brand I purchased did not, and I guess I installed it upside down and it made one heck of a mess. You want the ones with the red dot clearly marked.

One final thing: these things are a bit prickly. I don't use gloves to install them, but I am careful. If you drop one of these on your bare leg, you're going to cut yourself all up. Be careful.

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Great price. Not much else to say. You have to replace water panels to help your furnace and for this price, you can's pass this up.

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Dumaine - 30 Cigars Humidor

Read the reviews and weep if you are a fine cigar smoker and don't have one of these. This humidor is beautiful. I don't smoke often but when I do I like to have a nice Tatuaje and this box really does them justice. I followed the supplied instructions to season the box which was a little drawn out I would perhaps buy one of the available seasoning kits if I did it again would probably make it easier. Anyway either way you'll get there and this humidor will make you feel spoiled and embellish the experience of keeping and enjoying your favorite cigar. My wife actually thought I lied about the price she thought it seemed like it would be much more expensive! Wanted this at Christmas but they have been unavailable anywhere for some weeks. Grabbed one when they appeared again and am delighted with this purchase.

Absolutely beautiful humidor, the pictures don't do it justice. Fast shipping and it arrived in perfect shape. Would definitely recommend this humidor for any cigar smoker.

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This product came in perfect condition and I am very satisfied with it I am almost ready to put some fresh cigars in it.

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I needed a mid sized humidor to facilitate my growing cigar collection, and wanted to find the best balance between asthetics, and functionality. This humidor hits both out of the park. I did research on a ton of humidors, and I can say first hand that the build quality on this piece is fantastic. Excellent seal, and good density to the humidor itself, and consistant humidty levels.

For $100, you can't find a better humidor. Also, the customer service at Neptune is absolutely amazing. Great all around buy!

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The humidor arrived very quickly after we ordered it, and it is beautiful. Even better than the picture!

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Sunpentown® SU - 2081 Digital Ultrasonic Humidifier w/ Sensor

As a humidifier it works well but I'm on my 3rd one in as many weeks. The first one had a malfunction in the LCD screen and the 2nd one constantly shut on and off while it made a horrible growling noise. We'll see how #3 holds up. When its working it performs well but I am having doubts about the quality control. I'm sure it's another quality Chinese product. Amazon has been terrific to deal with.

#3 had a defect as well. The indicated room temp stayed at 32 degrees no matter what the actual room temp. I tried blowing warm air over the sensing unit but it stayed at 32. I think I'll live with it because the reviews on the other humidifiers are not very good. At least this one does not leak and performs well.

On 5-15 the third one failed. These things are junk.

My wife and I moved to Illinois from South Florida in June. Since November I had really noticed how much drier it is in Illinois, especially at night with the heat on full blast. We purchased this humidifier and have been running it for about a week. It has been awesome. If you can deal with having to refill every night before bed, then you'll enjoy this piece of electronics. All dryness that I had to deal with at night before we got this is gone. It's pretty sweet. A night light that changes from green to blue is nice and relaxing. Not overwhelming unless you are a pitch black sleeper. It offers a bunch of settings, has an ionizer and allows you to adjust the humidity. I researched this pretty hard and it seemed like this would be the best bang for the buck and so far it is. For 43 bucks and free shipping you can't beat it. I'll do a follow-up in a few months, but so far so good. It's got my blessing.

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I bought this for my husband who dries out at night. We have a whole house Humidifier but this is in the bedroom for added comfort. It works like a charm. Love the adjustable settings for mist. I am so glad I made this purchase. The company was great to, fast to ship.

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stopped working within 3 weeks. cost more than a new one to pay for shipping back to manufacturer and then pay shipping back to me. i will just purchase a different brand locally so i can take it back to the store if anything happens.

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Who knew humidifiers could be pretty? This one is as much of a decorative addition as it is functional.

It is an excellent humidifier. Though it has not eliminated all the dryness, it has reduced need for liquid tears during the night. The tank holds just a little over 12 hours worth of water, so a 24 hour period requires 2 refills. The weight makes it easy to carry. If it held more water, it would be harder to transport to the water supply. It is also easy to clean, assemble, work, and has a multitude of features.

The most unexpected benefit is the night light. It is a soft light that morphs from turquoise to sapphire blue every few seconds, takes a second to go black, and starts again. It illuminates the water in the tank and it is almost like looking at a softly lit aquarium. It is very peaceful and serene. Also it is very silent and works beautifully.

I liked this machine so much, I bought a second one for another room.

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Air-O-Swiss U650 Digital Warm & Cool Mist Ultrasonic Humidification System

After having an infant addition to our family, I began looking for a humidifier especially with the Winter season fast approaching. I was looking at function, maintenance parts and prices as well as build quality and design. I didn't like how the various humidifiers looked like too quirky, too plastic-looking, too generic.

Then this Air-O-Swiss U650 caught my eye. It had an elegant design and shiny white colour that would fit any contemporary home. It reminded me of our Rabbit Air purifier in both elegant design and price. If I were to add this to our home, it wouldn't be an eye sore.

FEATURES:

1. Digital Display. Easy to read display even from afar to spot check it's current setting.

2. Sensitive Touch Controls. No need to press oddly raised buttons. This one sits flush on the unit for a seamless and simple design.

3. Simple Amber Lighting. No multi-coloured tacky lighting. This reminded me of the old German car lighting that was easy to see and read. At night, you can dim the backlight for a non-annoying soft light.

4. Hygrometer. This is one of the reasons why I chose this unit. Unlike the cheap humidifiers that just keeps on spewing moisture into the air. This unit will alert you of the current humidity level in your room/home. From there you can make a sensible judgement if you still want to introduce more humidity by raising the desired level.

5. Auto Mode with an "Intelligent Temperature Compensation". Humidity levels change when the temperature changes. You can't just expect to keep on maintaining a certain level when it's not advantageous and healthy. By setting the unit to auto mode, it calculates the desired humidity level based on the current temperature. No need to second guess what level you should be at throughout the whole day.

6. Cool/Warm Mist. Both have it's pros and cons depending on the current condition and season. You'd want a warm mist on cooler days and a cool mist on colder days.

THOUGHTS:

Like any humidifier or product that involves water for that matter, you'll need to know how to best maintain the product to keep it functioning as expected and prolong the life of the unit. For this specific Air-O-Swiss humidifier, there are two parts to replace:

The Ion Silver Stick that eliminates bacteria in the water and is expected to be replaced yearly. Expensive, but at least just done annually.

Demineralization Cartridge that needs quarterly replacement depending on the usage of the unit. If you use tap water, this is important to prevent any white dust due to hardened minerals to form in the water. Upon first use, you will need to soak this cartridge in water for 24 hours. The work-around is to use distilled or reverse osmosis water. That way there are no minerals in the water and you won't need this cartridge at all. Of course the cost is now buying distilled water versus buying another part. Choose your poison. If you have a reverse osmosis filter for your home, then that is even better. You save on buying this part and you are helping keep the product in the best shape ever.

Although I'd love to have this unit be more compact and slim, I guess it's necessary to be this bulky to prevent frequent water refilling for at least a day or even days. Where I reside, it rains quite often so there is enough moisture in the air at times. Since the unit is able to read the humidity levels in the air, it won't operate unless needed. This in turn helps eliminate the water tank refills.

If you were to invest in a humidifier, skip the novelty of the others and the guessing game of humidity levels in your home. This will do the job. Quite elegantly, I must add.

My experience with this humidifier is pretty much like the review "Beware" by MrJ.

This product is way overpriced and required more maintenance than I expected. It sure does look good with the high-tech display but that's all it has comparing to other humidifiers that cost many times less. For me, I have a need to use the humidifiers all Winter long every year. So, the decision to purchase this expensive Air-O-Swiss humidifier in hope that it can do better, last longer with less maintenance (because of Demineralization cartridge). Well, I was wrong. It made no difference with or with out the cartridge filter. I get even more white dust from this humidifier than any other humidifier I've used. The design flaw makes it hard to put the water tank back in and it drips a lot when remove it to refill every time. After the purchase of this A-O-S U650, I ended up using it a lot less than other low cost humidifier, which, btw is the Honeywell HWM-950. I like this Honeywell product a lot due to its low cost, easy to clean, and it works just like the A-O-S U650 if not better. It usually goes with "You get what you pay for" but NOT in this case. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS AIR-O-SWISS U650 PRODUCT.

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The highlights, which for me justified splurging $200+ on a humidifier, were supposed to be the humidistat, the demineralization system, the antibacterial defenses, and the high capacity.

I ended up disappointed with 3 of those 4 features:

The humidistat doesn't work. It was stuck at 35-40% even when the humidity in the room got to 80%. Total joke. Perhaps I should have tried exchanging the unit, but based on other reviews I concluded this is likely a design defect and not worth the time to keep trying replacements.

The antibacterial system is marketed as "4 band". As an engineer I automatically assumed this meant 4 bands of UV radiation. But I was wrong. The unit does not have a UV lamp at all. What they meant by 4-band and is explained in the manual, is: the pre-heating, the silver sticks, the ultrasonic tech, and special treated plastic together are the 4 things that kill bacteria. Perhaps my fault for not reading the fine print, anyhow, I'm disappointed.

Yes the mist-making capacity is higher than that on cheaper humidifiers, BUT, the extra pumping power comes with severe downsides: 1. The machine does not shoot the mist high enough up in the air, so it tends to make the surface it's sitting on become soaking wet, unless you run it at reduced power. A competitor's cheap unit shoots the mist twice as high. and 2. The tank only lasts 12 hours, that too is unless you turn down the dial.

My goal had been to keep a room at constant humidity 24x7. The lack of a working humidistat coupled with 12-hour capacity at full power actually had the opposite effect of maximizing the range of extremes dry when tank empty and nobody home to refill; too humid when running, due to failure of humidistat to cause automatic shutoff.

The demineralization system worked extremely well. A competitor's cheap unit left a fine white dust everywhere, although it did a better job of keeping the room within a comfortable humidity level.

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I purchased this item based on the great reviews I read about it. It worked all of 6 days before dying on me. If I'm lucky, the manufacturer will replace it or refund my money. We'll see. Meanwhile, I bought a replacement filter and replacement ion stick for when I would have had to change them. I'm out that money now.

EDIT: I contacted the manufacturer twice this week via email (I'm military and stationed in Germany, so calling isn't always an option for me), and I have gotten zero responses. Not only do I think the product is terrible, I think Air-O-Swiss's customer service is beyond terrible. I seriously recommend considering something else if you're looking for a humidifier after my experience.

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Contrary to popular perception, much of Colorado is as dry as a BONE. We have had mostly drought conditions in the Colorado Springs area for almost 15 years and that made it absolutely necessary to have a really GOOD humidifier. My requirement was complicated by my preference for a humidifier that could produce either warm, or cool mist. That made the quest quite difficult, and to put it simply, to my knowledge, nobody but Air-O-Swiss makes humidifiers that can produce either warm or cool mist. One thing that hasn't changed about Colorado is that it can be both hot and cold on the same day, so you definitely want both kinds of vapor mist, heated, and cool.

I went through two of the Venta Sonic VS205 humidifiers which I bought at an Ace Hardware store and although it produced an abundance of cool mist (even the cheapo's will do this), I never was able to get them to produce warm mist. I've never been able to get the store display moels of the Venta Sonic humidifiers to generate any warm mist, either.

So, off to Bed, Bath, and Beyond where I saw the entire variety of Air-O-Swiss humidifiers. I was like a kid in a candy store. They had all the humidifiers running in a separate section of the store and I could examine each as much as I wanted.

I finally decided to buy this pricy U650 model because of the filtration system, the disinfection feature, and the wide variety of control parameters the users can set. I had a 20% off coupon for Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and that sealed the deal.

I've had this humidifier for four months now and all I can say is that it is simply wonderful. I use it in a room that is roughly 22 feet by 16 feet and it keeps the humidity at exactly the point where I want it. The hygrometer is precise and consistent and literally allows you to set it and forget it without having everything get too damp. You can choose three different levels of vapor output, and on "High" this thing really put out a lot!

Maybe it's more the quality of our tap water in the Colorado Springs but I'm still using the same filter cartridge that came with the humidifier. They tell you to change it every two months, but that may not be necessary unless you live somewhere with really horribly mineralized water, like Phoenix. Just use good, clean water, and keep the humidifier clean (a monitoring system will tell you when to clean the nebulizer gizmo, and that is easy to do). One other thing: you may get a "false positive" that the unit is not working properly, and if that happens, try rapping the cartridge on the side of the sink gently on all parts of the cartridge. This kind of "shakes loose" the granules inside and breaks up any little clumps that may have formed. I have only needed to do this once in four months. Spend the extra money and get something that will make you happy. Life has enough other problems to worry about for you to have to be wheezing around in a powder-dry atmosphere.

One word of caution: don't have "slippery" hands when you refill the tank. The handle is mounted up top in the back of the unit, so after it is filled and you put the cap back on with the cartridge, you must support all the water weight from above on THE SIDE. I use two hands to do this. And I steady and position the bottom of the tank with the left hand while I hold the tank handle securely with the right hand. Cheers!

Venta Airwasher -Charcoal, 554436

Update on January 15, 2008:

Yesterday, the motor in my Venta unit began making a grinding sound after nearly six year of flawless operation. I called Venta customer service this afternoon. After wating a rather long time on hold, I was connected to a very pleasant man, George, who asked me to put the phone next to the motor so he could hear the noise. I did, and he did.

Without a moment's hesitation, George said he would have a new motor shipped at no cost to me, and that delivery could be expected within 5 7 business days.

It's always a pleasant surprise to find a company standing unquestioningly behind their warranty. If only more understood that's all it takes to create loyal customers.

*****

Update on September 17, 2007:

I'm pleased to report , my review, below, is still true in every detail. This product has been a terrific investment.

*****

I live in a desert~like New York City apartment and have owned my Venta Air Washer for almost exactly two years. During this time it has been operating on the "high" setting, 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The Air Washer lives up to all of the manufacturer's claims.

The Air Washer is a product of fanatical German engineering, over~design and bullet~proof construction, which accounts for it's rather grotesque price. However, I have owned products of inferior engineering and construction that have had to be replaced after one or two seasons. It is obvious I will own my Air Washer for many years to come.

The principles of operation could not be more simple (it's like a High School science project developed into a luxury product):

1) A fan blows room air straight down into a reservoir of water.

2) In this reservoir of water, a few dozen disks are slowly rotating to multiply the surface area that is wet.

3) Because you are blowing air onto a enlarged wet surface you are multiplying the rate of evaporation.

4) Humidified air is exhausted out of the Air Washer through vents in the side.

THIS WORKS.

On the "high" setting the water reservoir needs to be refilled daily in my apartment (this is highly dependent on your local weather or heating cycle). I end up carrying a couple gallons of water to the device or carrying the device to the bathtub and then back to its spot in my livingroom.

The design of the Air Washer is "neutral." It sits unobtrusive and un~noticed in a corner. It is nearly silent. It is built like a tank: It would be a challenge to damage this product on purpose.

Why not Five Stars?

The Venta Air Washer consumes expendables. You need a water treatment solution to prevent mineral deposits forming on the rotating disks mentioned above (weekly). AND you need a periodic cleaning solution to remove deposits that develop pn the bottoms and walls of the reservoir. I have tried operating the Air Washer without these things. They are required for optimal performance.

Like the device itself, the Venta treatment and cleaning solutions work perfectly and simply. But, THE EXPENDIBLES ARE EXPENSIVE! Assume youy will spend US$50.00 per year.

Also, you would think that for a company selling a FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR humidifier, the Venta aroma therapy scents would smell a bit less like a Central American bordello (not that I've ever seen one of those). Skip these even if they're free samples.

If you want the very best at any price, buy this product.

I am not affiliated with either the manufacturer or Amazon.

Having used a Venta humidifier in Germany several years ago, I was delighted to see that they are selling in the U.S. now as well. I had a case of sticker shock though, as they are now much more expensive than their older models used to be, but since I used to be very happy with them, I decided to go ahead and buy one anyway.

All Venta humidifiers belong to the class of cool mist humidifiers, which in my opinion is the best principle, as you don't "over-humidify" the room. Normally a cool mist humidifier has a filter that sucks up water from the tank and a fan blows air through the filter. Thus the water evaporates into the air and increases its humidity.

The difference in the Venta humidifier is that it doesn't use filters, but two arrays of plastic disks that rotate through the water. A fan on top of the device sucks suckes air through those disk arrays and the water drops that were lifted up from the tank evaporate.

One of my major gripes with other cool mist humidifiers is that the fan is very noisy even on the lowest setting. The Venta fan is pleasantly quiet. I keep the device in my bedroom at night on the lowest fan speed and I don't notice the fan at all.

While it is true that you won't have to replace filters every few months, you WILL need to replace the water treatment additive at every cleaning cycle (usually 10-14 days), so there ARE some maintenance costs. The LW44 comes with two fillings of the additive, afterwards you have to spent about USD 16-18 for a bottle of the water treatment which will last for 12 cleaning cycles (4-6 months). Venta also sells a cleaning solution, but according to their manual you won't need it in most cases. In any case the cleaning solution costs about $10 and is only good for one cleaning, so using it frequently will really drive the maintenance costs up.

All in all this is indeed the best humidifier that I ever had. I'm not giving it five stars, because I still think the price is outrageously high.

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After living with a low end humidifier that did little and made too much noise for the bedroom I decided I would get the best humidifier at any cost. That was three years ago and at that time the Venta fit that bill. My initial impression of the Venta was very good the idea of a fan blowing over wet disks seems pretty ingenous and solves problems like airborn bacteria, mineral deposits, and gives the machine some air cleaning capabilities. Right from the start I was surprised how poorly it humidified the air checked with a high quality hygrometer it only raises a medium sized bedroom's humidity by about 5% at maximum speed and is useless at lower speeds. Furthermore, at maximum speed the device sounds like an unusually loud room fan which is difficult to sleep with. People talk about the device being quiet at the slowest speed which it was but this setting is ineffective at humidifying even a small room based on my readings with a hygrometer.

Now I've lived with this unit for 3 years and have encountered further problems that have finally driven me to admit this whole purchase was not a good idea.

The first problem with this unit is that the "air washing" capability results in the machine getting dirty... but unlike almost every other kind of humidifier this dirt is everywhere on the machine throughout the disks, all over the fan, all inside surfaces. On the inside surfaces (which have lots of hard to clean nooks) this dirt is similar to a sticky wax and on the wet surfaces its more like a slime. I spend about 30 minutes struggling to clean it each time I try before I feel I've done an OK job. The Venta cleaner additive doesn't work that well on the disks, doesn't do anything for the waxy sludge on the housing because it doesn't touch it, and the unit has so many difficult to clean parts that it's nearly impossible to get all the dirt. I even tried putting the non-electrical parts in the dishwasher which doesn't work either.

The second problem is that this device can "easily" generate very loud noises to the point that I have to shut the machine off because I'd rather be tormented by dry air than this devices groanings. I say easily because it is possible with enough cleaning and fiddling to keep this device operating at the "merely loud" fan noise that it had when I got it. But after 3 years this is becoming very difficult to accomplish. There are two possible sources for this noise. First, the gears themselves operate by having plastic tabs press against the gears in an undulating fashion. When clean this usually happens quietly... but when even slightly dirty these tabs can make a loud studdering noise that is caused by two materials not moving against each other smoothly. If you've ever heard your car's windshield wipers studder across your windshield instead of smoothly glide over the glass you know what this sounds like. It's not quite that loud, but when you're trying to sleep it might as well be. The second source for this noise is imbalance in the fan. With a little dirt on the leading edge of the fan the fan seems to be aerodynamically or statically out of balance and makes an undulating groan about every 4-6 seconds the way an old fan can be expected to. On a $15 room fan it would be the kind of noise that might cause you to throw it out and get a new one. On a humidifier this expensive?

Finally the device is sensitive to being assembled in just the right way or it will make the noises I've mentioned above much more easily. Normally you just put the top on the device and you're in business. But with these noises you start pressing on different parts of the top to try to shift the plastic pieces into better alignment. Once you press in just the right way and the device stops making noise you slowly remove the pressue and 99% of the time the noise comes back. If you push and prod you are sometimes able to get the machine to be quite, but often you have to unlatch everything, reseat the fan assembly and start over. That gets old fast when its 3am and the machine just starts making a really annoying noise that wakes you up.

I call my 3 year journey with this Venta machine a battle because I've tried tons of things to help compensate for this machine's problems. The initial problem of low humidification is because the device sets up its own recirculating airflow that's limited to an area fairly local to the device. The humidity within one foot of the device is very good according to my hygrometer. The humidifier's fan sucks this air back into itself repeatedly. By placing another fan to the side of the Venta to provide room circulating air current you can get an additional 3-5% humidity 5-7 feet away from the device (like where you're head is in bed). Of course now you've got another source of noise in the bedroom.

To compensate for the gear noise and the dirt problems I've tried adding all kinds of things to the water that might act as either a cleaner or a lubricant or both. I've tried double quantities of the Venta additive, a variety of soaps, various aeromatic oils in quantities where the oil's lubricant properites might help. Really nothing is effective.

In the end I have to say that I'm most dissapointed by this machine's price. The unit is nothing more than a large hunk of plastic with fan on top of it. If it was made in China this unit would cost $39.95. But its made in Germany by a company that seems to be over charging far beyond what the added expense of German manufacturing and poor exchange rate would explain. Being German made I was expecting that the unit be better engineered. The machine is built well nothing has broken in 3 years of constant operation. Its weaknesses are not structural. There are simple ways of eliminating the problems I've listed. Fan noise can be reduced by using a larger, slower moving fan with more and better bearings (something that should be expected in a $500 device). The gear mechanism that generates so much noise should be replaced with a non-contact device like a magnetic drive similar to high grade aquarium pumps. A top of the line magnetically driven pump costs 1/3 of what this Venta costs so magnetic mechanisms should easly have been considered for a $500 device. That these obvious techiques... or any others... are not employed on a device of this cost in the face of its inherent problems is criminal.

99% of the time I recommend spending the extra money (even if it's 5-10 times more) and getting a machine built the right way. This machine is not built the right way it's just 5-10 times as expensive. I don't believe anyone is building a humidifier the right way at this time. Given this I would have to recommend one of the 4+ star devices for $50-70 steam seems to be the best for avoiding white powder and bacteria. I've purchased two Honeywell HWM450 steam humidfiers for $55 each. Their ability to humidify is incredible. In the same bedroom with 50% humidity the Vental might get it up to 55%. The Honeywell can get it to 70% if you want and has digital controls for setting the exact humidy you want (although they don't work that well). Overall any shortcomings of the $55 Honeywell are not related to it's main function humidifying. The same can't be said for the VENTA.

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The Venta LW44 Air Humidifier is as advertised.

First, it is exceptionally easy to set up, operate, and maintain. It took me less than five minutes to take the humidifier out of the box and place it in position in the front hall. Another couple of minutes were spent reading the few directions that tell you to add the cleansing ingredient included in the box to the water to make sure the fans function effectively. I filled up the tank, turned on the machine, and walked away.

Second, daily maintenance is a snap. I take off the cover in the morning and evening and fill the machine to capacity, put the top on, and walk away. At the end of almost two weeks I brought the machine to the sink, emptied it, rinsed and wiped it out, filled it, added cleaner, placed it back in position, and turned it on again. This might have taken five minutes or so.

Third, the machine quietly puts a couple of gallons of water each day into the air. The Venta is exceptionally quiet and extremely effective. I'm not sure how much cleaner the air is, but we are no longer sneezing from breathing dry, dusty air.

Summary, the Venta LW44 is exceptionally easy to set up, operate, and maintain. The technology of rotating disks works as advertised to add moisture to a dry environment. The air seems to be cleaner, but I can't attest to the extent or degree of improvement beyond saying that we are breathing easier.

Others have discussed the high price of this machine, but if it lasts ten years as advertised, it is well worth the purchase price. Cleaning solution is a modest cost I am willing to pay to keep the machine running effectively. Highly recommended.

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It works as expected with a modicum of care, but its retail price is rather high. However, I have found that I do not need to buy the expensive additive they sell. Instead once or twice a week I dump it our, wipe the inside of the tank, refill it with water and put just a very tiny amount of hand dish washing detergent in with the water. The big advantage for me of using cheap dish detergent is that I can dump it frequently without buying lots of their expensive additive, so it never gets very dirty.

Their additive contains "surfactants" they say, but so does any detergent. Simple physics, actually: without a little surfactant water tends to bead-up on the plastic disks without wetting them as it should -but the surfactants found in Joy dish detergent do the job equally well. Only trick is be careful to use MUCH less dish detergent than you would to wash dishes, because you do not want suds! Also, ONLY add detergent after dumping, not when just adding water because detergent doesn't evaporate.

In three winters of use the only problem I've had with mine was a small crack on the upper housing which I fixed with tape and it still works OK.

Unlike some users I've never seen much dirt accumulation in the water, because I live in a modern condo so my air has very little dust in it. And because I dump the tank at least once a week, I've not seen that much accumulation of mineral deposits either.

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